R A L P H The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities Number 119 Late Late Summer 2004 |
TWENTY-TWO STARS
NEW LISTINGS
REVIEWS
The Pearl Diver 365 Positions and Activities
Great Reviews of the Past
BRIEF REVIEWS
LETTERS Great Letters of the Past ARTICLES
Part II READINGS
POETRY A Singing Bird THE OFFICIAL RALPH
GENERAL INDEX
A PITHY SAMPLE
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In our "General Index,"
we award stars to books that
the editors feel are of "especial merit."
Here are twenty-two of the most recent,
listed in order of appearance,
beginning with our 100th Issue.
Kaiserschlacht 1918
Spiritual Bathing
Ruining It for Everybody
Buddha Da
"Several times we've bemoaned the fact
that we don't have stars hanging around RALPH
so we can pin them on a worthy writer.
Buddha Da would probably garner the full monty.
Big ones. Of gold. Shimmering there,
right at the top of the review,
right where they belong."
"If one wanted to research
attitudes and treatment of lepers in Japan
one could do no better than
to make this your reference. However,
some of us have a thing
about novels that are,
for their author's own reasons,
unrelentingly bleak."
For a Year of Great Sex!
"'Early Bird Gets the Worm'
(Month 3, Day 25) enthuses,
'Ladies, get out your lip balm.
This is a fellatio position,
so your lips need to be
nice and soft!'"
Desert Survivor
The Adventurer's Guide to Exploring
The Great American Desert
"After I got through with this one,
I had closed and locked the doors of my house.
I called up my travel agent
to tell her I wanted to go off to the desert
but a safe one. Like Algeria,
Iraq, or Afghanistan."
Churchill at War
Samuel Beckett
The Flying Follies
Hunters' Rights
RALPH and Lolita Lark
It's a wonderful site.
I'm intrigued by your name.
Me too. Larks are too.
Hugh Gregory Gallagher
(1932 - 2004)
Part I
"In 1968,
he and Senator Bartlett cooked up
the Architectural Barriers Act
which stated that all federally-funded buildings
would be required to have ramps, curb-cuts and
access to all facilities.
It was their radical view that
accessibility was a basic civil right for all."
"'I'm going to go to St. Petersburg.'
'St. Petersburg, Florida?'
I always figured that as
the home of Nurse Ratched.
'No, no,' he said, 'St. Petersburg, Russia.
To the Hermitage Museum.
I've been meaning to go
for some time now.
And afterwards we're going
to have dinner
in a pre-Czarist restaurant.'"
The Dalai Lama of Scotland
"Jimmy, get a grip, for godsake.
Whit on earth are these folk
gonnae think when you turn up
and tell them their wean's
the new Dalai Lama?
The best you can hope fur
is that they call the polls,
the worst is that you'll
get yer heid kicked in."
Festival
"Artificer's artifice
Mixing a little grace with guts
Two flares
Rosy outbursts
Like two breasts bared
Nipples insolently uplifted
HE COULD LOVE."
"Somewhere out there the war is a bluebird
Who loves me and I love a girl
More perfect than all roses
The poor war is alone."
Paradox-of-the-Month
A complete list of all books reviewed in RALPH,
arranged by title, including author, subject, and publisher,
plus a listing of all readings, articles and poems
that have appeared since 1994.
of our most notorious reviews
as collected in the hard-copy
"FOLIO"
Help perpetuate honest, noisy, pesky book reviews.
With your $25 subscription, you get
a free copy of one or more of the titles from
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Submitting Reviews
Suggestions for would-be reviewers --- and payment schedule.
History
RALPH
didn't spring full-blown from the brows of the gods:
We've
been around (in different guises) for over thirty years.
The
Fessenden Fund
Describing the good works of RALPH's official godparent
Post
Office Box 16719
San Diego CA 92176
poo@cts.com